Coming Home
by Dukes126plus
Summary: What Luke has set out to do, that’s got to happen here in Hazzard. From season five's Welcome Back Bo 'n Luke.


For no good reason, I have finally decided that season five will get posted next. Could be I picked it because it's only got the four episodes (at least there are only four that I am paying any attention to).

This vignette starts in a scene that ought to include Coy and Vance. However, they don't exist for purposes of this project, so they are simply omitted. (It was appallingly easy to do.)

* * *

"Gee whiz," Jesse says, and Luke has to cough down a laugh. After months of the filthy-talking men on the circuit, returning to the farm is like stepping back twenty years into his own childhood. Sort of. "You fellas didn't get to do anything you set out to."

Except Bo did. Luke nods at him and the trophy comes out. Jesse's surprised and proud and hugs his boys close. Back thumps and sniffles.

What Luke has set out to do, that's got to happen here in Hazzard.

Five months, it was. Bo's dream and Luke had only halfway outgrown it. Going seemed like a good idea at the time. Heck, Luke suspects Bo would still think it was a good idea if not for him. It got to be too much, with the rough men and the easy girls, and no one but each other to count on. Waking up together, working together, losing track of each other in the evenings but eventually going to sleep together ought not to have been all that different from their routine in Hazzard. Still, something about it wore on Luke. Maybe it was trying to protect Bo against all the unknowns of the road. Hazzard was a self-contained, if ultimately perilous, place, where Luke knew all the twists of the road, all the squirrely personality quirks in the lawmen, all the intentions of the women.

On the road, Bo hooked up with girls just as casually as he would at home, as if his little experience at the hands of one Diane Benson had taught him nothing. Luke wanted to teach him how to be discriminating, but it was like trying to convince rabbits not to multiply; he just couldn't manage it. So he watched things unfold, night after night with that sour sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Maybe a month ago, he recognized that feeling to be jealousy.

The farm, he figured, would straighten him out. Hazzard and its endless distractions. So he started test driving the idea with Bo, what if we, don't you miss, isn't the track confining? He reckoned it wasn't fair, though, to drag Bo back with him, not if he was loving the circuit. Luke fully expected to come home alone. But just before the Mobile Cup, Bo had announced it would be his last race. He and Luke had other places to be.

And as much as part of him was relieved (because it wouldn't be long before Bo, left to his own devices, met up with the kind of girl who would take him for an entirely different kind of ride) the rest of him thought it might just have been for the best, if him and Bo had gone their separate ways.

Looking at Jesse's shining eyes now, he's glad they both came home. The bisque in the kitchen is another fantastic reason to be back in Hazzard, even if it does mean sitting on the same side of the table as Bo, elbow to elbow again. Funny how he's gotten used to having space on either side of his arms, even if it entails watching Bo forget to close his full mouth half the time. (He might have developed an improved appreciation for Daisy while they were away.) He doesn't want the warmth of Bo's skin right there up against his own, but he smiles for his uncle anyway, raves over the meal, and resists the urge to nudge Bo's arm back onto its own side of the invisible line between them.

After a while, Jesse kicks them out of the house on the theory that the whole town has missed them, and now that he knows his boys are home for good, he's willing to share them with the rest of Hazzard. And Cooter is helpful enough to provide them with just the kind of distraction Luke figures he needs in order to get him back on track.

Most of the adventure moves very quickly, between the race cars and ambulances. He has to figure out the angle in record time, because their lunch with Jesse set them behind for the day. Petey Willis is hurt, Boss has got a scheme, Cooter's leaving town, the Duke boys are driving through walls of fire – he's almost seasick from the motion.

Until time freezes. They're after the man who has turned the day upside down, a foot chase at full speed, which leads to the Duke boys landing in a heap at the foot of the old circus train. They can't afford to lay here and nurse bruises, so Luke's up and offering his hand to Bo. There's a grip there, trusting and warm, a squeeze as Bo finds his feet. Everything's in motion again, except those two hands, linked together. They're still holding this place like a bookmark: we'll come back here.

Luke lets go so they can duck out of the way of heavy objects hurled at them from above, and everything resumes its speedway momentum. Foot chase, flurry of movement, fist fight. In the end, the Dukes and Davenports emerge victorious. Hugs and handshakes for everyone.

Dinner finds him across the table from Bo. A little space between them is maybe a good thing.

Bedtime is another matter. He has to relearn the rhythm of ducking away from flying elbows and Bo wrestles himself out of his shirt. Their bedroom's too small. Funny how he never used to notice that. He sets to unpacking his underwear into the dresser until his cousin's done flailing around in the middle of the room.

Bo sighs from where he's sitting, shirtless but still in jeans, on the edge of his own bed. "You ain't any happier, Luke."

"Huh?" It's his best imitation of a man who doesn't understand. It might not be the kind of thing that wins him awards, but he reckons it's convincing enough.

"You know what I'm talking about, cousin." Bo's annoyed, and Luke's not as good an actor as he thinks he is. "You spent the last – I don't know, three months? – miserable." Three months is an exaggeration. So is miserable. "I figured if you came home… What's wrong with you, Luke?"

Luke's got socks to sort, and Bo's asking him the kinds of questions that take more concentration than he's willing to dedicate to the task.

"Bo," he asks, concentrating on folding the neck of one sock into another. "Did you want to stay out there on the circuit? Because you didn't have to come back with me." In fact, there's nothing that's keeping Bo from going back right now, if he wants to.

"I ain't never wanted to be anywheres you ain't, Luke." Funny how saying something like that doesn't seem to tear Bo's guts apart the way it would Luke's. For all the things he's seen and done, Bo is still awfully innocent. "Unless you don't want me with you…"

There's some old book he remembers from his elementary school reading. Something with a kid and a dog, or maybe it was something wild, like a 'coon. Whatever it was, the kid raised it, but couldn't keep it. So he chased it away, crying the whole time. And the dog or 'coon, or come to think of it, might have been a deer, never understood a damned thing about why it was getting rejected and sent off to live alone in the woods.

"You should go back to the circuit, Bo," he says, swallowing hard.

"Is that really what you want?"

_Yes_. A single syllable, three little letters. It ought to be easy to say. As easy as agreeing that this sock belongs with that one. He should say it and quick, before Bo ruins his own life by—

"Luke? You really want me to go?" Miserable voice in his ear, tentative hand on his shoulder. _Turn around and tell me to my face then_, unspoken.

He can't do it. Some kid in a children's book is stronger than him, has better resolve, is less selfish. Luke Duke is just too damned flawed to do right by his cousin. So he turns around and grabs onto Bo with both arms and no intentions of ever letting go.


End file.
